Thank you to John for sending in the following article on Ugijar Market. We have a friend who lives in the mountains about 15 mins beyond Ugijar in Valor, so have been up that way a number of times. Ugijar itself is a lovely little town, with great little places to have tapas or a Menu del Día, and all very Spanish. One thing we have never done though is visit the market so I was interested to read John’s article.

“Following the advice from one of our friends, we took a day trip to Ugijar market today.

Ugijar is just under an hour’s drive from Almerimar. Take the E15 motorway towards Malaga and take the first exit to Dalías. Follow the road across a number of roundabouts heading for Dalías. Once you are close to Dalías just keep on going on the main road towards Berja. Bypass around the east side of Berja and then follow the signs towards Alcolea on the A347.

Just before you reach Alcolea turn left onto the A348 towards Cherín and Ugijar. Be careful on this road as they are currently building a direct road to Ugijar but at the moment you have to go through Cherín. As soon as you enter Cherín you take an unsignposted left hand fork (the right hand fork is signposted to Picena). The road goes up into the hills and then down into the valley where you find Ugijar.

As you enter Ugijar you will pass a small church on your left. Keep going down the high street until you reach a larger church on the right. The market is all around this area. However, you may have to carry on another 300 to 400 yards to find a parking spot.

The market take place in the streets around the church and a few other streets below the church. It was well under way when we arrived at 11.00am and was about finishing when we went off for a drink and a snack at 1.00pm. If you rushed you could get around all the market stalls in an hour. We took our time and revisited some stalls a couple of times.

There were a lot of clothes stalls, a number of shoe stalls, a couple of stalls selling sweets and nuts, a few selling bags, belts and jewelry plus a roast chickens van. In addition there was a small indoor daily market with a few stalls selling fruit, veg and fish.

At around 1.00pm we went for a drink and a sandwich in a bar/restaurant called Pepe Aguados which can be found just behind the large church. The restaurant part was empty but the bar area was pretty full. We ordered a couple of small beers and got asked to chose from a good selection of tapas. We had lomo and grilled cheese. Both were very good. We wanted a little more food so we ordered a couple of bocadillos (sandwiches). We had two excellent baguettes with spicy pork (similar to the meat on a Spanish kebab - pincho). Total cost was 10 euros which we felt was pretty good value for the amount and quality of food. The only let down was that the loos were not that good. But we have found that you get that in a lot of places in both Spain and the UK so not a major problem.

All in all it was a pleasant few hours away from Almerimar with some nice views on the way. Not something we would do often but well worth doing once in a while. We had to get back to Almerimar for the afternoon but if we were to do it again we would probably go for a trip around a few other towns in the Alpujarras as well.”

Sounds great and the views ARE fantastic along the way, AND the roads are pretty good and not too scary. If you are into markets don’t forget to check out the more local one every Wednesday in El Ejido OR the daily indoor food market there. For more information click below:

El Ejido - Mecadillo

El Ejido - Mercado

About Almerimar

Almerimar is located in the region of Andalucia, Spain. The nearest airport is 30km away in Almeria. Other airports that are within 3 hours include Malaga, Murcia, Granada, and Alicanti. Other holiday resorts in the region include Mojacar , Aguadulce and Roquetas de Mar

Almerimar is also one of the largest marinas in Spain with over 2,000 births and excellent boatyard facilities.